They are the coolest people in the mafia and they know it
suegiku is absolutely insane like can we take a moment. at first their relationship is played off like a joke like haha tecchou watches ants and jouno hates him but man. man. the fact that tecchou is a man who places justice over everything, while jouno is a sadistic fuck who appears to have no moral code. but theyre partners!! tecchou reigns in jouno when he gets too out of hand. and THEN
tecchou wholeheartedly believing that jouno is a "hero that despises violence and protects the weak", when even the man who recruited jouno and inspired him to save others in the first place only did so because he thought jouno would be easy to use in villainy. of everyone, tecchou is the only one who believes in jouno:s goodness; the one who has spent the most time with him, the one who is known for being singleminded and terrifyingly focused when it comes to destroying evil, the one who's dumb as a brick and oblivious as hell. and he's right!! jouno refuses to join fukuchi. he proves fukuchi wrong. fukuchi was the one who originally saved him and gave him a second chance in helping others, and it was all so he could eventually use him as an assassin. and even though that was a lie, jouno still became a better person, and found someone that believes in him. GRAH.
CHUUYA DAYYYY !!,!,!
are the flags in the room with us right now
Absolutely adore how two chapters after we learn Elbaf is a blood purist society and one of a Celestial Dragon deriding the 'lower world' for its filthiness, Scopper's first moment of page time has him explicitly saying "fuck you actually, the world is a big, beautiful place. Love who you want and enjoy the amazing people and experiences that come from mixing cultures who by the way will always find ways to thrive in spite of the hardships they face".
uhh, dazai loses his ability for a day so he can pet the big cat <3
I wanted to talk about the current main threat to the BSD cast because I feel like not many people talk about him and how terrifying he is and also what he symbolises.
His creation/abilities:
So Divine Being Amenogozen was created via the 'Tripolar singularity' - a combination of 3 abilities/ability infused items. These are the Amenogozen sword (or the Space-Time sword), The Holy Sword Soluz Levni and Fukuchi's ability Mirror Lion. In short, Amenogozen can stab/move through space and time, the Holy Sword can infuse people's abilities into their bodies, and Mirror Lion strengthens any weapon by 100 times.
In terms of skills, Divine Being Amenogozen (who I will now refer to as Gozen) possesses the abilities of the Space-Time sword (liquification/absorption of people/abilities and energy blasts), as well as superhuman speed/swordsmanship, Levitation, self-healing and the ability to generate blades from himself to match his sword. He's already a powerhouse of an oppenent with just these skills that makes him an insane enemy for the characters to fight, but it's some of his other skills I want to draw attention to - mainly, spatial manipulation and his higher-dimensional existence (although I may bring mention to the others too).
As opposed to the others, I single out spatial manipulation as it is one of the things that makes him most intimidating alongside his physical appearance/actions. He's able to disappear and reappear in various places in the blink of an eye, something which really adds to the general horrifying nature of him as an antagonist.
The main aspect I want to talk about is him existing on a higher dimension than every other character in the series. Fyodor specifically says that Gozen is a fourth-dimensional being, whereas the rest of them are third-dimensional, and that Gozen's form is simply a shadow of his true self. Essentially, Gozen exists at a higher level of existence that is inconceivable to the rest of the cast, operating at this higher level not only in consciousness but also in ability/skill. It is why all of his skills are so heightened that they surpassed perhaps every single character in the current BSD canon.
To simplify the idea of dimensions, i'm pretty sure that a three-dimensional object is something that can be specifically located via 3 units (or dimensions) - usually this is the scales of height, width and depth in a physical space. A four-dimensional object also adds another variable scale (usually time I think) that you can see. In essence, Gozen is able to perceive the scales of height, width, depth and time (which implies that he can see through time itself).
[I want to clarify that this is not a topic I am very knowledgeable on, and I am kind of teaching myself the basics as I write this. So please feel free to correct me if I've got this wrong.]
So Gozen is able to travel across space and time, as well as manifest himself in multiple places at one via the past and present versions of himself (as if writing with two hands on a piece of paper, as Fyodor describes it). Fyodor describes Minkowski Space as part of his skills, a concept that I can't quite figure out how to explain so I recommend you give it a bit of research tbh). And Fyodor uses that to essentially kill the ability users that stand in his path and intimidate Atsushi into leading him to the book. It's also important to note that Fyodor, due to the seal marked on his hand from the Holy Sword, has seemingly complete control over the actions and abilities of Gozen. It is interesting to combine these concepts of Gozen's character with the general ruthlessness of his actions because it to me acts as a visualisation of the wrath of God.
Religious connotations and the wrath of God
Fyodor as a character has always been associated with religious imagery from his introduction. I don't know what specific sect of religion he's usually associated with, but for the sake of this post I'll talk about Gozen and his links to Christian imagery (since Christianity is the religion i'm most familiar with).
[My understanding is also quite limited so please don't take what i say is complete fact in case i'm completely wrong 😭]
Gozen as a higher-dimensional being to me brings associations with the concept of God and his omnipotent power. God is often said to know all, see all and have immense power (enough to create, for example, worldwide flooding). Gozen also exhibits similar concept:
- when he faces kunikida he is aware of his previous injuries (his hands being destroyed by the explosion in escape from the Hunting Dogs), despite not having been known to exist until much later.
- Gozen uses huge blades to chop down any buildings in a large area around the airport, showing he has power on a huge scale.
- Since he can present in multiple places at the same time (by manifesting past and present versions of himself at the same time) he can perceive through time.
Now, Gozen is not specifically like the Christian God. The christian God is said to have created the world we know and have complete control over it. Gozen doesn't show any evidence of this. Gozen seems more similar to a God present in a religion with multiple Gods that are worshipped by different people for different purposes. I seem to bring this towards the Christian God because often I know more about it (Christian primary school core) and see many depictions of the Christian God as one who is surprisingly ruthless - weather it be in stories surrounding Adam and Eve or The Great Flood for example. It's the inherent horror associated with this wrath (great anger and/or a desire to punish) that I bring to attention.
It is the inherently horror of being punished by someone of a higher existence and power that I focus on. I can see how Fyodor summoning Gozen to rid of his enemies here and his plan to unite humanity via the removal of the 'curse' of ability users can feel similar to the concept of Judgement day, where God is to come down and judge humanity for their actions and send them either to heaven or to hell. Fyodor however is more about force and violence in his methods, suggesting that he has perhaps invoked the more violent aspects of Gozen's wrath.
And there's a huge element of horror in fighting against a being who exceeds you in every single aspect and is at a completely inconceivable level and has so far basically killed anyone it has come in contact with before you but yet it decides to spare you and intimidate you instead because you serve, in its opinion, a greater purpose. Because that's what Atsushi is facing. Gozen is drawn in such an intimidating way at many points when facing atsushi too - I'm adding some because I think his design is so interesting too (might make a separate post on that because this is getting long).
Essentially, Gozen is terrifying because he is above and beyond everything any of these characters have ever known and possibly will ever know. He is a godly being who is ruthless in his directed pursuits and operates with such an intimidating air because of his inherent power and higher-dimensional existence. He is terrifying because he is so inconceivable and invincible in the eyes of the characters in universe, and to them Fyodor has essentially invoked the wrath of a God upon them for the 'crime' of being ability users that dare oppose him.
[This post started to fall apart towards the end because I only have a limited understanding of God's presentation in Christianity but I wanted an excuse to talk about how interesting and terrifying Gozen is as a character concept... I kind of love him as an antagonist despite him being so overpowered.Sorry that this became a bit of a mess towards the end but feel free to add anything to this idea - whether corrections or new ideas!]
"friends don't look at each other like that" well okay you coward you do whatever you want however i WILL look at my friends like they're the most important thing in the world. i love them with my whole heart and i will hold their hand and stare at the stars not because i wanna fuck them but because they mean the world to me and i care about them. fuck you
Vibes for this chapter:
Now that my hands have stopped shaking, here are my main take aways. This is gonna be a super long word vomit, so just be prepared:
Shamrock is aware of Shanks (they might have met) and seems disappointed that Shanks likes chilling with ✨the commoners✨
If Shamrock’s sword has the Cerberus-Cerberus Fruit, that means that the theory of Blackbeard having it is debunked
The Shiki-looking figure made a reappearance when Luffy was talking about Shank’s family and seems to be approaching the castle, so we might meet them soon
THE MURAL AND HARLEY
I wonder if there will be a specific character that made the mural, who we’ll be introduced to later. Ripley’s line about “a child’s dream” stood out to me
Due to the “Three Worlds” that Robin reads about, I’m assuming that it’s basically confirmed that there have been 3 holders of the Nika fruit, that coincided with the 3 world-changing events (the first Nika, Joyboy, and now Luffy)
There are 3 demon-like figures, one for each world. I assume they represent the foe that each Nika rose up against, but are they different? Are they the same? Are they all Imu? Only Oda can tell
And here’s everything I took note of on the mural:
The First World
The forbidden sun — power source? Devil Fruits???
Seems like it caused the separation of the earth and the sky/heavens
Lots of factory imagery
Who were the slavers?
The figures (the slaves) carry sun/starburst things. Are these the forbidden sun? Devil fruits? They seem to be throwing them toward the Second World part of the mural, where “embers of war” are mentioned
BIG SNAKE, SERPENT OF HELL, WHO ARE YOU???
The Second World
“The God of the Forest sent forth demons” — is this about devil fruits? Fruits grow on trees (duh) and then obviously demons = devils. And later, it talks about the Sea becoming enraged
Mentions of people belonging to the Half-Moon and the Moon. What is the difference? Is this referencing the Lunarians?
“Humanity killed the Sun, and then ascended to divinity” — they killed Nika or Joyboy? Seems to be about the Celestial Dragons
“The God of the Sea became enraged” — about the rising of the sea levels?
bruh, the boats look like Enel’s ship. If Enel comes back, I’ll lose my mind
The Third World
Where we are now. The final arc. What we should expect. The future.
References the Void Century and how the Elders and Imu remember what happened and what might happen (“the day of promise”)
“They will surely meet again” Who? The reunion of everything that was separated in the First and Second Worlds? The reunion of all the gods that were mentioned?
The mural is amazing and there are so many details throughout, but especially in this section
Obviously there’s Nika/Joyboy (Luffy) leading an army against a figure that’s probably Imu
Under Imu, there’s a boat with figures in white uniforms — Marines/the World Gov
In Nika’s army, there are figures that represent: giants, minks, lunarians, mermaids and fishmen, samurai/ninja/people from Wano, a robot (Emet?), dwarves/tontatta, Sea Kings/Laboon (the whale), and a ship with a flag that looks like the Alabasta kingdom’s flag (@sabo-torao’s post brought my attention to that, shoutout to them)
There are so many details that I probably missed and so many things that Oda probably hasn’t explored yet, but will and I’m so excited
But TLDR: Oda cooked, Lore Piece is real, this chapter was fantastic, and the final war arc is gonna blow my mind
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